In our Debt Payoff Update for October post we talked about how after the 31-Day Spending Freeze and after our son suffered a severe burn right in the middle of the freeze we decided that Adam would be working very minimally. You know we’ve been seeking a minimalist lifestyle for about the last year, and it’s starting to pay off. While this will slow down our ability to save for a new car and pay off our mortgage (See how to use the snowball or interest rate methods to pay off your debt), we believe it’s best to have someone home more often. (See all of our Debt Free Journey posts here).
While hubby did work a little more this week than usual, it was amazing how much more stressed we were, and that was even with him only working 2 1/2 days just to help out other clients through his nursing agency. We have already started seeing the value that having one of us home is bringing to our family.
How we made changes this month to save and earn extra income while we are spending as little as possible:
- We were blessed with our blog last month, and received several sponsored content offers, which gave us an additional $400-$600 in income this month.
- Our Young Living business produced over $600 in extra income this month as well. We have started sharing our love for Essential Oils locally, and we have been so blessed by so many local families wanting to get healthy as well. We also continue to support over 300 oily family members nationwide.
- Our Christmas gifts are totally purchased (and wrapped) and we will have a debt free Christmas this year. We would love to have you print out our free Holiday Binder for 2015.
- Our Nest Home Thermostat has been installed for over two months now and it is definitely saving us money on utilities. I can’t believe what a difference it has made, and how competitive we are with trying to get as many green leaves in our area as possible. We get a report sent from our app to our email showing us how “green” we are compared to others in our area. We were in the top 25% this past month.
- I actually did not start tutoring last month, but we did pick up several extra photography sessions and made extra money that way and gave two sessions as gifts, which created extra room in our budget.
- We are continuing to eat organic thanks to Aldi and other stores in our area. So this past month we purchased a quarter of a grass fed cow and split it three ways (between our family, my mom, and a friend). Our friend’s husband calculated our expenses at $3.50 per pound. Out of that quarter we were able to score several steaks and over 20 lbs. of hamburger in addition to ribs and other cuts of meat. So we actually saved money by buying healthier meat. $3.50 per pound is an excellent price around our area even for the fattest ground beef, let alone steak. I’m planning to write a post on the process of purchasing a cow. Let’s just say I am not a country girl! LOL
- I convinced our son’s burn doctor to extend our next visit out six weeks which will save us money on gas and time. Our son hates the 4 hour trip, and both feet are completely healed. Now we are just managing scar control, so the doctor agreed to an extension.
Prayer Requests & Praises:
- Praise for the continued healing of our son’s foot.
- Praise that my husband is getting a better diagnosis than just asthma. We were able to re-home our cat and it looks like severe allergies were adding to his cough.
- Prayer that all his tests come back ok. So far the ENT says no throat cancer or anything from his perspective which is good!
- Prayer that we can continue to focus on getting healthy!
Comment below and let us know how you are doing on your debt free journey!
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